System and method for referral fee processing in accounts managed by financial advisors

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus which provides for a referral program where a financial institution, such as a broker dealer, can refer customers to an independent financial advisor, under an on-going referral fee sharing agreement. The on-going referral fee sharing agreement provides that the financial advisor will pay the referring financial institution an on-going referral fee based on the asset management fee that the advisor charges. These referral fees are processed automatically and the transfers are done electronically, allowing the referral program to be implemented efficiently and effectively.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S.patent application Ser. No. 10/121,195, filed Apr. 12, 2002, entitledSystem and Method for Referral Fee Processing in Accounts Managed byFinancial Advisors, which is herein incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a system and method for a referralprogram for financial accounts.

BACKGROUND

Financial institutions can provide customers/investors with a wide rangeof services, but it is frequently the case that one financialinstitution does not adequately meet all the requirements of acustomer/investor. One type of financial institution is a broker dealer.As is known in the art, a broker dealer financial institution holdscustomer financial accounts and operates to execute transactions such asthe buying and selling of securities on behalf of customers. FIG. 1shows a prior system 100 for a broker dealer. A broker dealer canestablish investor accounts for its customers. Thesecustomers/investors, sometimes referred to as retail investors, who haverelationships directly with the broker dealer and have not enlisted theservices of financial advisor to manage their investor account. Thesecustomers are shown in FIG. 1 as investors 1, 2, . . . , N. Datapertaining to these retail investor financial accounts 104 is stored ina data storage system 102. FIG. 5 shows an overview of relationshipsrelating to a broker dealer 502. Each of the investors 504 enters intoan investor broker dealer agreement 506 with the broker dealer 502 whichspecifies aspects of the relationship between the investor and thebroker dealer. As shown in FIG. 1, investors can communicate with thebroker dealer via an internet 120 connection, or other suitablecommunication network, to a communication port 110 of the broker dealersystem 100. The investor can also directly contact representatives ofthe broker dealer, either in person or via telephone. The investors havefinancial accounts 508 holding a variety of financial assets which arecustodied with the broker dealer. Assets held in the accounts caninclude stocks, bonds, mutual funds, bond funds and money market funds.In response to investor instructions the broker dealer executestransactions 510, such as the buying selling of assets with others inthe financial markets 512.

In some cases the broker dealers employ stockbrokers that providespecific financial advice to investors, such as recommending that aninvestor customer buy or sell a specific security. In other cases thebroker dealers operate to provide customers with general informationregarding investments, such as recommending general asset allocationstrategies, or other investment strategies. In some cases broker dealersdo not provide a high degree of direct interaction between an individualstockbrokers and individual clients, and do not provide specificrecommendations, such as buy Stock A and sell stock B. Theinvestor/broker dealer agreement 506 specifies fees that are charged tothe investor for different services provided to the investor 504 by thebroker dealer 502.

In some cases, an investor will take a different approach and workdirectly with an independent financial advisor 112. The advisor 112takes on responsibility for managing the assets held in its client'saccount 514. In these situations the client of the advisor 516 relies onthe advisor's services to implement investment strategies and wealthmanagement approaches that fit the client's needs. In these cases, thebroker dealer 502 will typically provide very little direct advice tothe client of the advisor 516 with respect to the client of the advisoraccount 514 which is managed by the advisor 112. In these situations,the broker dealer 502 will act primarily as a custodian to hold theclient of the advisor financial accounts 514 and the assets therein, andto execute the transactions as directed by the financial advisor 112.The clients of the advisor 516 (in FIG. 5) are shown in FIG. 1 as clientA, B, . . . Z of advisor. Where a client employs the services of anadvisor 112, the advisor and the client of the advisor 516 enter into anAdvisor/client agreement 518, which specifies aspects of theadvisor-client relationship. Typically an Advisor/Client agreement 518provides for an asset management fee, where the management fee ispercentage of the total assets managed by the advisor. Usually thisamount is about 1% of the total assets, and can vary up or downdepending on the total value of the assets managed by the advisor. Insome cases, the advisor may charge additional fees for additionalservices such as financial planning, estate planning, and taxpreparation. These additional fees can be considered part of the assetmanagement fee or can be treated separately.

Advisors 112 who have client of advisor accounts 514 custodied with thebroker dealer 100 enter into an advisor/broker dealer agreement 520which specifies aspects of the relationship between the advisor 112 andthe broker dealer 502. This agreement specifies fees which the brokerdealer will charge the advisor for services provided by the brokerdealer. The client of the advisor will also enter into an agreement 522with the broker dealer regarding their relationship with the brokerdealer 502. The broker dealer system 100 stores data for all of theclients of the advisor whose accounts 514 are custodied with the brokerdealer. The client of the advisor account data 106 stored in thedatabase system 102 of the broker dealer system 100 contains, amongother data, information identifying the specific advisor associated witheach client of the advisor account 514, and information identifying theassets held in each client of the advisor account.

During the normal course of business, broker dealers frequently identifyretail investors who are interested in forming a relationship with anindependent financial advisor 112. Frequently, such investors will seekguidance from the broker dealer in connection with their interest inretaining the services of a financial advisor 112. In such situations,the broker dealer 502 may want to refer such an investor to an advisor112 that they have worked with in the past, and found to be reputableand effective independent financial advisors.

Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Schwab), which is a broker dealer, and theassignee of the invention herein has previously developed andimplemented programs for referring qualified investors seeking theservices of an advisor. One recent program implemented by Schwab is theAdvisorSource® program, which has been widely publicized and utilized byboth customers and advisors. The AdvisorSource® program requires thatthe independent financial advisor pay a fee to the broker dealer forreferrals of investors interested in retaining the services of afinancial advisor. The referral fee paid under the AdvisorSource®program is based on the number of broker dealer branch offices whichwill refer customers to the financial advisor.

For example, a financial advisor would pay a set referral fee to receivereferrals from a particular branch office of the broker dealer. As aresult of the referral fees, referrals would be made from the particularbranch office for a specified period of time. Whether or not referredinvestors engage the services of the financial advisor the referral feewould remain in effect, and it is not dependent on the number ofinvestors, or the amount of the investor assets, which the financialadvisor ends up managing as a result of the referrals. Under theAdvisorSource® program, the referral fee is a one-time fee paid by thefinancial advisor to the broker dealer, for a set period of time. Thisfee is one-time in that the advisor pays for referrals for a specifiedperiod of time, and the advisor has the option of paying an additionalset fee after the prescribed period of time to receive additionalreferrals for an additional specified period of time. If the advisoropts to not pay for additional referrals, then the advisor will pay noadditional money to the broker dealer under the referral program, andwill not receive further referrals. Thus, for clients which the advisorhas previously secured as a result of past referrals, there will be noadditional referral fees due to the broker dealer.

In an earlier referral program implemented by Schwab the financialadvisor would pay fees to the broker dealer based on the value ofinvestor assets which were brought under the financial advisor'smanagement as a result of a referral. This previous referral programprovided that the amount the referral fee would decrease each year for areferred account, and after the third year of management by thefinancial advisor no additional referral fees would be due to the brokerdealer. Specifically, this prior referral program provided that theadvisor would make payments pay to the referring broker dealer asfollows: thirty percent (30%) of the first year of advisory fees owed bythe client to the advisor; twenty-five percent (25%) of the second yearof advisory fees owed by the client to advisor; twenty percent (20%) ofthe third year of advisory fees owed by the client to advisor. Accordingto this previous referral program the advisor was required to pay thebroker at the time the client was required to pay the advisor. Theprocess for implementing the payment of the referral fee was manuallyintensive. At the end of the quarter the broker dealer would prepare aform for the advisor identifying all of the referred accounts. This formwas sent to the advisor, and the advisor would fill out the form andsend it back to the referring broker dealer indicating the assetmanagement fee for each referred account. The broker dealer would thengenerate an invoice for each advisor based on the above formula, andsend the invoice to the advisor.

When an investor is referred to an advisor, and the investor and advisorenter into an advisor/client agreement, the investor account will betreated by the processor system 108 of the broker dealer system 100 as aclient of the advisor account from that point forward. In the context ofFIG. 1, this means that the customer account will now be moved to aclient of the advisor account area 106 of the data storage system 102.

In some cases, the AdvisorSource® referral arrangement has beenperceived as not aligning the interests of broker dealer with theinterest of the financial advisor as directly as possible. For example,the broker dealer, derives revenue for making referrals regardless ofwhether or not the financial advisor is able to form a relationship withreferred investors. Further, even under Schwab's referral program priorto AdvisorSource®, the broker dealer would receive large front-endloaded referral payments based on the advisor's asset management fees,but after three years, no further fees would be due to the brokerdealer. Thus, the broker dealer would be in a position of havingreceived a relatively large percentage of the early asset managementfees generated by the financial advisor, even in the situation where thefinancial advisor was not successful in retaining the clients assetmanagement business for the long-term. The prior referral programsintroduced other limitations and concerns which are addressed byinvention disclosed herein.

SUMMARY

The invention herein provides an apparatus for implementing a referralprogram by which a referring party can, under an on-going referral feesharing agreement, refer an investor to a financial advisor who providesasset management services. The apparatus includes a processor system forprocessing data, and a database system for storing financial accountdata. The financial account data includes a referred financial account,which is managed by the financial advisor and which is subject to theon-going referral fee sharing agreement. Further, the processor operatesto periodically analyze the financial account data in the databasesystem and identify the referred financial account, and toautomatically, on an on-going basis, provide periodic electronictransfers of a referral fee to the referring party.

The invention herein provides a method for referring investors from afinancial institution to a financial advisor that provides assetmanagement services, where the financial institution and the financialadvisor have entered an on-going referral fee sharing agreement. Themethod includes referring an investor to the financial advisor. Wherethe referred investor retains the service of the financial advisor tomanage an investor financial account, data is entered into a databasesystem, indicating that the investor has retained the services of thefinancial advisor and that the customer financial account is a referredaccount. The processor systems then provides on-going periodic automatedelectronic transfers of referral fees to the financial institution.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a broker dealer system of the prior art.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a broker dealer system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a method of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the relationships between an investor,a broker dealer, a financial advisor, and a client of the advisor.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As discussed above, in the past, some broker dealers have referredinvestors to financial advisors. Under those prior referral programs, inreturn for referring investors to financial advisors, the financialadvisors paid a fee to the broker dealer. Under one prior program, thiswould have been a flat fee for referrals over a period of time fromspecified branch office of the broker dealer. In other programs, amanual process was employed to send invoices to financial advisors forreferral fees, where the amount of the referral fee was front end loadedand terminated within three years of the referral.

The system and method of the invention herein offers a number ofadvantages over previous referral programs, in that its unique referralfee structure aligns both the short-term and long-term interest of thebroker dealer, the advisor and the investor. Further, the system andmethod of the invention herein provides for efficient and automatedprocessing of referral fees associated with referring investors to anadvisor.

FIG. 6 shows an embodiment of a method of the present invention. At step610, the broker dealer enters an on-going referral fee sharing contractwith a qualified advisor. As will be discussed in more detail below,this on-going referral fee contract provides that a referral fee will becharged to the financial advisor for so long as the referred investorfinancial account is managed by the advisor. After the on-going referralfee sharing contract is executed, the broker dealer refers investors tothe advisor 620. Where a referred investor engages the services of thefinancial advisor, the broker dealer updates 630 its database system toidentify the investor's financial account as a referred client ofadvisor account. On a periodic basis, the processor system 212 of thebroker dealer system 200, shown in FIG. 2, analyzes the client of anadvisor financial account data to determine a referral fee 640. Once thereferral fee has been determined, the processor system electronicallytransfers 650 a referral fee to the broker dealer. This transferring ofa referral fee can be achieved by determining the amount of an assetmanagement fee due to an advisor, and then transferring this assetmanagement fee to the advisor, after deducting the referral fee due tothe referring broker dealer. As will be discussed in detail below thisprocessing and transferring of the referral fee is done by the processorsystem 212 in an automated manner. Further, this periodic transferringof a referral fee can be done in response to receiving notice from thefinancial advisor that an asset management fee is due to the advisor.

FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a broker dealer system 200 of the presentinvention. The broker dealer system includes a processor system 212which analyzes and manages data in a database system 202. As will beappreciated by those skilled in the art a suitable processor systemcould be configured using mainframe computers from IBM, or servercomputer systems from Sun Microsystems, or other similar computer systemproducts from a number of other vendors. As was the case with the priorsystem, each retail investor can access the broker dealer system via theinternet 218, or other suitable communication network, throughcommunication ports 214 of the broker dealer system. Additionally, theadvisor 112 and the clients of the advisor can access the broker dealersystem through communication ports 214. Depending on the specificimplementation the clients of the advisor may directly access the brokerdealer system or go through an advisor system to access client ofadvisor account data on the broker dealer system. Typically, theinvestors, clients of the advisor, and the advisor have computers whichinclude a range of components including, a CPU, hard drive, software,including a web browser. Thus, they can communicate with the brokerdealer system using conventional communication networks such as theinternet 218, or other suitable communications network. It should alsobe noted that Advisors, clients of the advisors, and retail investorscan also directly contact the employees of the broker dealer to giveinstructions regarding the financial accounts held by the broker dealer.

The broker dealer system can utilize a wide range of database products,including a conventional DB2 product commercially available from IBMCorporation of White Plains, N.Y., or other database products such asdatabase system products by Oracle. The database system 202 holdsdetailed financial information. The database system 202 maintains retailinvestor account data 204 and client of advisor account data 206. Theclient of the advisor account data 206 includes data 208 which indicateswhich client of the advisor accounts were referred to the advisor by thebroker dealer, and are subject to an on-going referral fee sharingagreement 216 (i.e., a referred financial account), and which accountsare client of advisor accounts that are not subject to an on-goingreferral fee sharing agreement 210.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart describing an embodiment of a method of thepresent of invention. In this method the broker dealer identifiesinvestors that are interested in retaining the services of anindependent financial advisor at 300. In one embodiment investors whoare suitable candidates for referral to a financial advisor should haveinvestable assets in excess of $250,000.00. For investors with lessmoney to invest, it is likely that a relationship with an independentfinancial advisor will not be suitable, because the fee structure formost financial advisors is such that it is uneconomical for advisors toservice investors with less than $250,000.00 in investable assets.

Another part of the method herein is identifying an independentfinancial advisor 310, who is likely to be a suitable candidate for areferral program. Objective criteria has been identified to aid theprocess of selecting advisors for the referral program, where the goalis to select advisors who are most likely to provide effective serviceto investors. The financial advisor's business should be of sufficientsize such that it suggests a sustainable business. Generally, suitableadvisors will have at least $50,000,000.00 under management. Othercriteria includes whether there are two or more principals, or partners,sharing ownership of the firm; whether the firm been a registeredinvestment advisor for at least five years; whether there is at leastone professional designation, such as a certified financial planner(CFP), or certified public accountant (CPA) per firm; and whether theadvisor has error and omission insurance.

According to an embodiment of the invention, all advisors 112 who wantreferrals from the broker dealer 502 must enter into an on-goingreferral fee sharing agreement 216 with the broker dealer. The on-goingreferral fee sharing agreement 216 sets forth aspects of therelationship between the broker dealer and the financial advisor. If theadvisor agrees to the terms of the on-going referral fee sharingagreement 320, then qualified investors will be referred to theinvestment advisor 330. Following the referral, the investor will meetwith the advisor 340. In some circumstances it is beneficial to have arepresentative from the broker dealer present at the meeting between theadvisor and the investor to facilitate the meeting.

The on-going referral fee sharing agreement 216 provides that if norelationship is formed between the investor and the financial advisor asa result of the broker dealer's referral of an investor to the advisor,then no fees will be due to the broker dealer. The broker dealer willreceive information from the investor or advisor indicating if thecustomer has entered into an advisor customer agreement 350. Where areferral fails to result in the referred investor entering into anadvisor investor agreement, then the broker dealer can follow up withthe referred investor to see if another referral to a different advisoris appropriate 360. However, if a relationship is formed, then theaccounts which are being managed by the advisor as a result of thereferral are identified 370 as referred financial accounts in the brokerdealer's processing system. On a periodic basis, which will typically bequarterly, or in response to receiving a notice from an advisorindicating that an asset management fee is due, the processing systemwill review the client of the advisor account and determine the amountfor a referral fee to be transferred to the broker dealer 380.

FIG. 2 shows referred client of the advisor accounts 208 in the datastorage system 202. Typically, the process of identifying an account asa referred financial account includes inputting data to the databasesystem 202 which indicates that the financial account is a referredaccount and should be processed in accordance with the on-going referralfee sharing agreement.

Where the investor agrees to engage the services of an advisor, thecustomer 516 and the advisor 112 enter into an advisor client agreement518 as discussed above. The advisor investor agreement 518 willtypically provide that the investor will be charged an asset managementfee (typically this is in the range of 1% of assets under management).The on-going referral fee sharing agreement 216 between the advisor andbroker dealer, which is a separate agreement between the advisor and thebroker dealer, provides, among other things, that where a referralresults in an investor engaging the advisor and entering into an advisorinvestor agreement 518, the broker dealer will receive an on-goingreferral fee. This on-going referral fee is a percentage of the assetmanagement fee which the advisor charges the customer.

The on-going referral fee sharing agreement can additionally set forth anumber of additional obligations, such as that the advisor use theirbest efforts to ensure that the investor's referred financial accountcontinue to be custodied at broker dealer. The contract can alsorequires that client of the advisor information be treated with a highdegree of confidentiality. The on-going referral fee sharing agreementcan further require that employees of the advisor who work with thereferred investor agree to not solicit referred investors in the eventthat the advisor employee leaves the advisor firm. The agreement canalso provide that the advisor must perform client relationshipmanagement best practices such as using written suitabilityquestionnaires, producing quarterly performance reports and meeting withthe investor on an annual basis. In one embodiment the agreement canalso provide that the financial advisor can use certain marketingmaterial to promote the fact that financial advisor is part of a networkof financial advisors who receive referrals of investors from the brokerdealer.

Ideally, the referral process will be such that a broker dealer canrefer a qualified investor to a single financial advisor, and thisreferral will result in a successful match between the customer and theadvisor. In some cases, however, a customer may be referred to a secondfinancial advisor so as to increase the investor's options in selectinga financial advisor.

In one embodiment, the on-going referral fee sharing agreement providesthat the broker dealer will receive 15% of the advisor's management feefor the referred account. As discussed above the asset management feefor a financial advisor is often based on the net value of the assetswhich the financial advisor is managing and is in the range of 1% peryear. Thus, for an investor with a million dollars, under managementthey would pay a 1% management fee to their financial advisor whichwould be $10,000.00. According to the original referral fee sharingagreement the broker dealer would charge a referral fee of 15% of the 1%(i.e. 15 basis points), which would be $1,500.00 where the advisor's feewas $10,000. According to this embodiment the referral fee is on-goingfor as long as the client continues to engage the services of theadvisor.

By structuring the referral fee so that it is based on a successfulreferral, which result in the investor engaging the services of thefinancial advisor, a number of advantages are obtained. For example, itprovides the broker dealer with a direct incentive to make sure that thereferrals are successful, and it provides the broker dealer with a longterm financial interest in the advisor's relationship with the referredinvestor.

The fact that the on-going referral fee sharing agreement provides thata referral fee is paid to the referring party (i.e. the broker dealer)on a periodic basis for as long as the advisor manages the referredinvestor's financial account allows the amount of the referral fee to bepaid initially to be a relatively small percentage of the total feegenerated by the advisor. This arrangement is in strong contrast withthe prior referral programs discussed above. As previously discussed,one such prior program provided that the advisor would initially pay amuch larger percentage of the advisor's fees to the broker dealer, butthese payments would not extend beyond the first three years of theadvisor providing service to the referred customer. However, if theinvestor were to leave the advisor shortly after the conclusion of thefirst three years, the advisor would not be able to recover any of thereferral fees paid to the referring party (the broker dealer). In thisprior program, the broker dealer could be viewed as having incentive tomake the initial referrals, but not the same financial incentive tosupport the advisors long-term relationship with the referred investor.Specifically, the present invention reduces the risk that the brokerdealer's interest in the client-advisor relationship could diminish overtime, as the broker dealer's referral fees would go to zero in threeyears. Further, under this prior program the advisor could be viewed astaking a unfair risk, in that the advisor had to give up a largepercentage of the fees associated with the account during the firstthree years of management, but there was no recourse for the advisor ifthe referred investor left at the end of the third year. Also asdiscussed above this prior referral program was a largely manualprocess, and did not provide for an efficient and automated referral feepayment system and method.

Under the more recent AdvisorSource® referral program the advisor wouldpay a single up front referral fee. This approach also introduceduncertainty in that the advisor paid for referrals even where many ofthe referrals did not lead to a successful engagement.

In contrast with these prior referral programs, the invention hereinreduces the advisor's risk and better aligns the advisor's and thebroker dealer's interests. Under the on-going fee sharing agreement,herein, the advisor pays where a referral results in the investorretaining the services of advisor. Further, because the referral fee ison-going for as long as the advisor retains the referred investor'sbusiness the referral fee can be a relatively small amount the advisor'smanagement fee, instead of being front end loaded as with the priorreferral programs. Thus, the referring broker dealer has significantfinancial incentive to provide services which support and foster a longterm relationship between the referred investor and the advisor. Furtherusing the system and method herein the referral fee is administered in alargely automated and cost effective manner.

The present embodiment also addresses the fact that for an effectiveprogram to be established some minimum level of commitment must be madeby the advisors, and a consistent minimum revenue stream should bemaintained. To achieve this end, the on-going referral fee sharingagreement provides that where an advisors referral fees fall below aspecified minimum amount, then the specified minimum amount will be paidto the referring broker dealer, instead of, or in addition to, thereferral fee sharing based on 15% of the advisor's asset managementfees.

FIG. 4 shows the process by which referral fees are automaticallyassessed for referred accounts and provides detail regarding theon-going fee sharing agreement. At step 400 the processor system 212operates to analyze data in the database system 202, and to identifyreferred client of the advisor financial accounts. Once the referredfinancial accounts have been identified by the processor system 212, theprocessor system determines if the advisor customer has entered into anelectronic funds transfer agreement, which allows for electronictransfer of funds out of the referred customers financial account to payfor advisor management fees 410. If the customer has authorizedelectronic transfer of funds then the automated method can proceed. Ifthe customer has not authorized electronic transfer of funds then manyof the steps below are still applicable for determining the amount ofthe on-going referral, but the referral fee would have to be processedon a special handling basis 415. Specifically, the referral fee for theaccount would have to be manually billed to the advisor, orelectronically transferred from other fees which the advisor is due. Inthe normal course of operation, the broker dealer and the advisor willencourage advisor customers to authorize electronic transfer of funds topay management fees, which reduces the cost of delivering services tothe customers.

In the present invention the advisor can submit fees to be charged tothe advisor customer financial accounts over the internet, or othernetwork connection, to the comm port 214 of the broker dealer system200. Additionally, the advisor could communicate directly employees ofthe broker dealer to convey this information. For accurate processing,accounting and tracking purposes, the data provided by the advisor forthe fees can identify the fees separately for each account, and notaggregated which would create confusion as to how much each accountshould be charged. Further, in many cases the advisor will also provideadditional services to the customer, such as financial planning, estateplanning, or tax preparation. In one embodiment these additional feesare included as part of the asset management fee for purposes ofdetermining the referral fee amount. In another embodiment these feesrelating to additional services may not be considered as part of theasset management fee for purposes of determining the referral feeamount. One embodiment of the client advisor agreement provides that theasset management fees will be billed on a periodic (usually quarterly)basis. The on-going referral fee sharing agreement 216 can provide thatwithin a fixed amount of time after the end of the quarter, the advisorwill submit data indicating the amount of the asset management fee to becharged to each referred account.

At step 420 the processing system analyzes information provided by theadvisor and determines if the asset management fee for a referredaccount has been submitted. If the asset management fee has beensubmitted, then the processing system will calculate 430 the referralfee (i.e. 15% of the asset management fee) for each referred account. Ifthe advisor has not submitted that asset management fee for a givenreferred account within a set time period from the end of the quarter,then the processing system will use a special handling process 425 fordetermining a referral fee amount for the referred account. This specialhandling process can be a default method which provides that theprocessing system 212 will analyze the referred account data 208 in thedatabase system 202 to determine the total asset value for the holdingsin the given referred account. The processing system will then determinethe value of 15 basis points (i.e. 0.15%) of the total asset value forthe referred customer account. The amount determined by this defaultmethod will then be deducted from an amount of funds which are to beelectronically transferred to the advisor for services provided inconnection with servicing other customer accounts. If no fees are to beimmediately electronically transferred to the advisor, then the amountof the referral fee calculated using the default method may beseparately invoiced to the advisor, or it can be debited against fees tobe electronically transferred to the advisor in the future.

Once all of the periodic (e.g. quarterly) referral fee amounts have beendetermined for each of the advisor's referred accounts, the processingsystems 212 sums these referral amounts to determine 440 an aggregatereferral amount which is owed to the referring broker dealer. Theaggregate referral amount is then compared 450 against the specifiedminimum amount (discussed above). If the aggregate amount exceeds thespecified minimum then advisor will be charged the aggregate referralamount. If the aggregate referral amount exceeds the specified amountthen the advisor will be charged the referral amount calculated for eachreferred account. The calculated referral fees are electronicallytransferred 460 to the referring broker dealer.

One approach to transferring the referral fees to the broker dealer isto create a master account for the advisor and to transfer all fees dueto the advisor from the customer accounts managed by the advisor, to anaccount holding funds for the advisor, from this fund the aggregatereferral amount could be transferred to the broker dealer. Anotherapproach is to electronically transfer the referral fee amount from thereferred customer accounts at the end of each quarter, and to deduct thereferral fee amounts from the fees which are to be transferred from thereferred customer account advisor at the end of each quarter. Inconnection with the electronic transfer of a referral to the brokerdealer, an advice of the charge is sent to the advisor 470. Anotherapproach is to immediately transfer the referral fee to the brokerdealer upon receipt of a notice of an asset management fee being due toa financial advisor on a particular referred client of an advisoraccount. At this point the asset management fee minus the referral feecould also be transferred to the financial advisor.

Although specific embodiments and methods of the present invention areshown and described herein, this invention is not to be limited by thesemethods and embodiments. Rather, the scope of the invention is to bedefined by the following claims and their equivalents.

1. A computer system including financial account data which implements aprogram by which a referring party can, under an on-going referral feesharing agreement, refer an investor to a financial advisor who providesasset management services, comprising: a database system configured tostore financial account data, the financial account data identifying areferred financial account which is managed by the financial advisor, iscustodied by the referring party, and which is subject to the on-goingreferral fee sharing agreement; and a processor system configured toprocess the financial account data, wherein the processor system isprogrammed to periodically analyze the financial account data in thedatabase system, identify the referred financial account based on thefinancial account data analyzed, and periodically electronicallytransfer a referral fee from the referred financial account to thereferring party, wherein the referral fee is based on a successfulreferral which results in the investor engaging the services of thefinancial advisor.
 2. The computer system of claim 1 wherein theprocessor system is further programmed to determine an asset managementfee charged to the referred financial account managed by the financialadvisor, and determine the referral fee based on the asset managementfee.
 3. The computer system of claim 2 wherein the processor system isfurther programmed to determine the referral fee on a periodic basis. 4.The computer system of claim 3 wherein the referral fee is calculated bythe processor system to be 15% of the asset management fee.
 5. Thecomputer system of claim 1 wherein the processor system is programmed todetermine an asset value based on a plurality of assets held in thereferred financial account, and determine the referral fee based on thedetermination of the asset value.
 6. The computer system of claim 1wherein the processor is further programmed to identify a plurality ofreferred financial accounts managed by the financial advisor and toperiodically determine a referral fee for each of the plurality ofreferred financial accounts managed by the financial advisor, and todetermine an aggregate referral fee for the plurality of referredfinancial accounts managed by the financial advisor, wherein theaggregate referral fee is equal to the sum of the referral fees for eachof the plurality of referred financial accounts managed by the financialadvisor.
 7. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the processor isfurther programmed to compare the aggregate referral fee with aspecified minimum amount, and determine when the aggregate referral feeis exceeded by the specified minimum amount.
 8. The computer system ofclaim 6 wherein the plurality of referred financial accounts areassociated with a plurality of investors.
 9. The computer system ofclaim 1 wherein the processor system is further programmed to determinethe referral fee on a quarterly basis.
 10. The computer system of claim1, wherein the referral fee is based on a fixed percentage of anadvisors asset management fee.
 11. The computer system of claim 1further comprising a communication port for connecting to the internet.